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Roger and Bonnie Riga, who died in early 2018, were a great asset in my own life, largely responsible for
getting me started in collecting Cinderellas, and a constant source of knowledge and encouragement
in continuing that adventure. They were major contributors to my web site, both in terms of information and images.
I will miss them.
This page is a tribute to them and their effect on me and many others in the collecting world. Below are my own thoughts about them.
If you have a story, a photo, or just a word of remembrance
that you would like to share here, Their website remains active at present, but may disappear soon - CLICK HERE. I have saved a copy, and if I can get permission from their estate, I will republish it here. It contains articles they published various places, plus the Fields-Picklo catalog and The Richard C. Witt Cinderella Reference Collection, all valuable resources for Cinderella collectors.
I think there are additional articles the Rigas published in Stamp Collector. |
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MY STORY: I met the Rigas at Westpex, the yearly philatelic extravaganza in San Francisco about 1990, when I still thought of Cinderellas as worthless paper that a true philatelist avoids like the plague. I was collecting mainly US mint stamps, and nearing the point where the ones I didn't have were beyond my means. I started looking through Roger & Bonnie's stock, and asking questions, and bought first a few items, because I liked their images, then a few more, as Roger told me their stories, and soon I was hooked. Over the following ten years or so, I always looked forward to seeing Roger and Bonnie at Westpex (This is when it was at the old Jack Tar Hotel in downtown SF). We went to lunch together a couple of times. I spent many hours at their table looking through their stock books and listening to Roger's stories and explanations about what I was looking at. I spent a lot of money ☺ . |
I'm not sure when they stopped doing Westpex - 2000, maybe? - but I missed being able to
draw on their knowledge, experience, and inventory. Fortunately, the www was fully developed by then,
and I was able to reestablish contact with them through email and eBay. This website was active
by then, and they were regular contributors of images and information. Whenever I encountered
an item I could not identify, Roger and Bonnie were the first ones I asked. They always
replied, often with the answer; if not, with ideas and other resources I should consult.
Their passing is a great loss to the hobby.
RIP, rogbon. Bill Senkus, 12/12/2018 |
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Contributions to this page are encouraged.
Click on the link below, and it will open an email window in your own email client.
Please provide your name and a brief description of how you knew the Rigas.
If you have any photos of them, especially at philatelic events, please send them.
If you have a story about them, please add that.
CONTRIBUTIONS: CLICK HERE
If that email link does not work for you, send your message to
(P.S. - I reserve the right to edit contributions for clarity, brevity, spelling, or grammar.)
Thanks!
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12/12/18 I look back with affection to both Bonnie and Roger. I did business with them for many years. They were the best people.
12/12/2018 I first met Roger and Bonnie more than 25 years ago. I was coming to the end of the life of one of my collections and was casting abut from something new. I had known Roger earlier but, at the time, was not interested in their weird and wonderful Cinderella material. One day, at an APS show, I was bored and sat down at their booth and said "Roger, show me something I haven't seen before." He handed me one of his red boxes containing European poster stamps. One look and I was hooked and have been ever since. The collection I built now resides at Vassar College where students have access to it and, in fact, used some of the material in a recent exhibit of 20th Century World's Fairs. They were both as charming as could be and, every time I saw them, had some goodies to show me and stories to tell. It was always a pleasure to sit and chat with them. They were dealers of the old school and I miss them a lot. |
12/12/18 Ray Petersen -
Taken at the St. Louis stamp show, spring, 2004. That show, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, attracted quite a few cinderella and poster stamp dealers and collectors. It was during several meals and discussions at that show where the idea for the Poster Stamp Collectors Club was born, and the PSCC was founded in the year following. This photo shows Bonnie and Roger at their sales table. The fellow sitting next to Roger is Tom Minor, a fellow poster stamp aficionado, who is a director and founding member of the PSCC.
I think I met the Rigas in the early or mid 1980s, early in my career as a cinderella dealer. At that time I was only dealing in foreign revenues, but they were very hard to find (pre Internet and eBay days). I remember visiting a stamp show at the Javits Center in NYC where Rigastamps had a table, and was astounded at their range of material. I then followed them at other east coast shows, and, eventually, with the digital explosion and the advent of the widespread use of the Internet, I followed their online store and their eBay presence. One thing I particularly remember is having a discussion with Roger about eBay and eCommerce and selling online. Rigastamps had already had an eBay store for quite some time, as well as their own online store. I was in the process of exploring options for an online store myself, and Roger gave me a great piece of advice about selling on eBay auctions. He told me that he had found the most important thing was continuity. He said that once you have followers on eBay, they will follow you regularly, but you must ALWAYS have something there to offer, or they will drift away. He said if you post (7-day) auctions once per week, try to have new ones ready to post before the old ones end, so you have material available all the time. I have found that small bit of advice to be very true and still applies today. Unfortunately the past year has been a tough one for cinderella collectors, having lost the Rigas, and also Mike Mead (Britannia Enterprises) and Dick Warren (Founding member and Secretary/Treasurer of the Poster Stamp Collectors Club). |
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Thanks!
Created -- 12/12/2018
Revised -- 12/12/2018
